guild-hosting
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Guild Launch rebrands as Gamer Launch, targets MOBA players
Remember Guild Launch? Sure, you do. Hasn't everyone signed up for the firm's instant-MMO-website services at one time or another? Anyway, Guild Launch is now Gamer Launch thanks to a scope expansion designed to "support additional game genres" and broaden the company's "appeal within the larger gaming community," according to a new press release. "In recent years we've seen a significant influx of players from a variety of other gaming communities including MOBAs and Minecraft," president Stephen Johnston says. The firm currently services over four million gamers and now offers new features designed for League of Legends, Dota 2, SMITE, and Minecraft players. [Source: Gamer Launch press release]
WowStead Guild Hosting services to close down
Guild Hosting service WowStead is closing its doors, in order to change members over to a system that provides a better service. WowStead sent out an email to users this morning informing them of such, and giving them time to transfer over to the GuildLaunch service. Without having access to any more information it is difficult indeed to postulate about the reasons behind the shift, but nonetheless, if your guild is hosted with WowStead, you will need to think about a new solution. The GuildLaunch transfer site asserts that it will make the move as easy as possible, and honor any payments made, but there are always other options, and maybe this is the time to consider them. There are a huge number of services out there, as a cursory google search will reveal, so choose wisely, or take the transfer option, but whatever you decide, enjoy your new home! If you're in need of guild advice, do check out Officers' Quarters, and you'll find the full letter from WowStead after the break.
Enjin offers guild recruitment system
Guild hosting service Enjin has added a new tool to its ever-increasing arsenal: guild recruitment. The site's new global game recruitment system allows organized groups to post their "players wanted" ads for searching souls to discover. The recruitment list is sortable by category and includes an MMO-dedicated section. Using the system, guilds can post a lengthy introduction letter to convey its purpose and history, where it's located, how many games it's a part of, and what voice communication (if any) it uses. At the time of this writing, Guild Wars 2 has the most recruitment ads, followed by World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic. [Source: Enjin press release]
Give your guild all the bells and whistles -- win an ultimate guild hosting package from Enjin and Massively!
We're very excited to unveil a brand-new feature here at Massively: our Massively site on Enjin! This is your central location for all the extras -- our chat room (which will replace the current IRC setup), events calendar, voice server information, and forum. We still love it when you comment directly on the news and columns via our comment system, but if you want a more in-depth discussion beyond that -- or to leave suggestions on various aspects of Massively -- our shiny new forums are the place for that. Even better, we're so excited about this new feature that we've arranged to share it with you! Enjin has a pile of cool features in its guild and clan hosting packages: Mumble voice servers; forums; event calendars; application and recruitment systems; personalized guild, clan, and gaming themes; multi-game support; and much more. Sound good? We hope so, because we have four one-year Enjin hosting packages to give away! One guild will win an ultimate package, and three others will each receive a premium package. To enter, send us an email telling us how you'd use a year of free guild hosting. Tell us a little about your guild, what premium and ultimate Enjin features you love, and which ones your guild will use the most. Include a screenshot of your guild and the subject line "Enjin contest," and you are entered! You have until next Wednesday, April 13th at 11:59 p.m. EDT to get your entry in. We'll announce the winning guilds on Thursday, April 14th, so read over our contest rules, get those entries in, and best of luck!
Breakfast Topic: Guild hosting
Liss on LJ wants to know, as do we: What is the best place to host a guild website? She's had good experiences with Guildomatic, while apparently lots of people like using Guild Launch instead. Most of the guilds I've been a part of have almost all used GuildPortal, but there are tons of sites out there, and even many more not linked here. What kind of experiences have you had at various guild hosting sites?And what exactly do you expect from them? It seems that pretty standard features on most guild sites have to include a blog of some kind (to track your guild's kills), a message board for both talking to the public and planning private raids, some time of roster software (powered by the Armory or otherwise), and a DKP tracker of some kind. Of course, even if you don't go with a hosting service, there are also lots of different apps that will let you do all of this on your own, as long as you're HTML and maybe even PHP ready.I'll tell you one thing I'd like to see in guild hosting sites that I haven't yet: a design that's actually easy on the eyes. I'm really proud you downed Vashj, guys, but next time, try raiding some web design fundamentals.
Guildcafe merges with Uberguilds
Guild site hosting is an interesting business-- on the one hand, it's really an ISP function, where you've got to keep the site up and running and make sure it has enough power to take on all that traffic. But on the other hand, it's also a community building venture-- it's your job to put the tools in place to keep guilds together and progressing in game. I have no idea what kind of money is going through it (from my experience, it's mostly an ad-based business-- you provide free hosting in exchange for ad views), but as online games get more and more popular, there's bound to be larger and larger companies coming out of the mix.And here's two now-- Guildcafe has announced on their blog that they've acquired Uberguilds. Guildcafe, from the press release, is apparently going to handle that technical side of things, and Uberguilds, with their broad reach of the community, is going to act as the "Guildcafe Alliance," and use Guildcafe's application to connect guilds and players together.I don't have a lot of experience with either (my WoW guild uses Guildportal, and while it's super ugly, it gets the job done connecting us out of game), but this could be the start of something big-- an ISP/application site combining with known community builders might be just what this "guild hosting" industry needs to become even more widespread.[Via Virgin Worlds]
